Meta agrees to settle social media addiction suit with states for up to $16 billion

Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, on Wednesday agreed to settle a wide-ranging social media addiction lawsuit with the state of California and a number of other states.

“The agreement includes a payment of approximately $18 billion, which can be used to fund youth online safety initiatives, among other state priorities,” Meta said in a statement.

The court filing says that the company “denies the allegations against it and that it has any liability to the Plaintiffs,” which are a collection of 29 states.

As part of the deal, “Meta commits to establishing daily limits and blocks on nighttime use for teenage users” as well as “enhanced age assurance measures to prevent children from accessing the platform, or age restricted content available on the platform,” the court filing also says.

Under the settlement, teen accounts would default to a setting that limits cumulative use across both Facebook and Instagram to two hours per day. The company said teens would need a parent’s permission to disable the two-hour limit.

Meta also agreed to hide the likes on teens’ posts by default and to block what it called “extreme makeup filters.”

The company said teens will also be able to “choose a non-algorithmic feed — one that isn’t personalized by our recommendation systems — as their default.” Teen users will also be able to disable autoplay video.

The settlement also requires the company to create “additional tools to help parents and guardians to protect their children online.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the lawsuit, said in a statement that the plaintiffs had “secured a settlement with Meta that will make social media less dangerous for our kids and make a world of a difference for children and their families.”

“Meta has agreed to make massive transformations that will reduce the risk of harm from its platforms — and will do it within months,” Bonta said.

In a separate statement, Meta’s chief legal officer C.J. Mahoney said the “framework we’ve negotiated will empower parents to easily manage how their children access our platforms.”

The company also called on competing social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube to follow suit.

“Because teens move fluidly across dozens of apps, we need an industry-wide solution. We therefore call on our industry peers, TikTok and YouTube, to implement this new framework, right away,” said Mahoney.

The announced settlement will require the approval of a judge.

The agreement comes one day after Instagram chief Adam Mosseri took the stand in California.

In the case, attorneys general from states including California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey accused Meta of harming children with its social media products, which they argued were designed to be addictive. They also accused Meta of violating federal privacy and consumer protection laws.

The tech company’s platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram, helped stoke a national mental health crisis among teens and kids, according to the states.

Meta, meanwhile, maintained a position that the states were cherry-picking certain features and ignoring the safety tools it has built for young users, including teen accounts, which automatically go private, in addition to other tools like time-limit reminders, parental supervision capabilities and restrictions on who can contact teens and what content they can see.

The trial was just one of several Meta has faced with similar claims. In March, a New Mexico jury and judge fined Meta over $900 million after the state’s attorney general argued that it’s platforms created a public nuisance.

In California, a state court found that Meta and Google were liable after a young woman said the tech companies, among others, contributed to her deteriorated mental health.

In some of the previous cases, other social media companies chose to settle while Meta continued to fight in court.

Meta said its settlement was part of an agreement with 52 attroneys general across the country, going far beyond the states that were involved in the California litigation.